What happens to the 9000 glaciers covering
38,000 square km of the Himalayas holds the key to understanding the
effects of climate change in India and evolving a strategy to tackle it.
For, glacial melt feeds the Indus, Ganga, the Brahmaputra rivers and
their tributaries, affects temperature in the plains and its study is
vital to planning hydroelectric projects, roads, and flood-management
systems.

And yet, the report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — considered the last word on the science
of the subject — makes no specific mention of these glaciers in its
chapter on Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground.

Reason: data sent by Indian scientists and
official agencies was so scarce and sketchy that it did not provide any
detailed insight other than the broad trend that glaciers were receding.
This despite the fact that an institute exclusively for glacial studies
was cleared by the Planning Commission, even a budget was fixed for it
but it’s been in deep freeze for over eight years now.

Admits Renoj Thayyenof the National Institute of Hydrology who was one of the scientists
in an IPCC working group: “The IPCC report is a global synthesis of
knowledge generated on climate change science and obviously biased
towards regions where most authentic knowledge base has been generated.
Due to near total neglect of Himalayan glaciers, impact of climate on
glaciers did not influence the current IPCC report.”

“There is no getting away from the fact that our
data base is weak. Although there is enough evidence that glaciers are
receding, it’s mostly anecdotal based on visible signs. We have no time
series data for glaciers,” said R K Pachauri, chair of IPCC. “While
there is assessment of aggregate change, we do not have the rate of
change which has huge implications for the hydrology of the country.”

This isn’t the only area left unexplored. Some
crucial gaps in Indian information on glaciers include:

• No “mass balance
studies,” that calculate the annual volume of snow added or melted. Such
data exists only for two glaciers, Chaurabari in Alaknanda and the Hamta
in Chenab.

• No study on
“energy balance,” which maps the effect of solar energy and radiation on
glaciers.

• No year-round
monitoring — most studies are done over just two-three months, a very
short time to track key parameters of glacial change

• No comprehensive
study on snow cover. This is crucial as it has tremendous implications
for water supply to rivers.

Not that the establishment is unaware of this.

The Planning Commission as well as the
Department of Science and Technology (DST) proposed a National Centre
for Field Operations and Research on Himalayan Glaciology (NCFOR-HG)
with many field stations to exclusively study glaciers. The proposal was
cleared by the Planning Commission way back in 1999, a budget of Rs 36
crore was fixed for it, but the plan is still stuck.

In fact, minutes of that Planning Commission
meeting record a scientist of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology
explaining severe limitations in data collection. The meeting
acknowledged that general studies on heat balance, precipitation, snow
and rain were not useful in discerning long-term changes.

After that meeting, a budget of Rs 36 crore was
earmarked and a task force set up to make the centre operational. Since
then, there has been no movement forward.

When asked why, T Ramsami, Secretary, DST, told
The Indian Express: “There is no manpower in the country. There is no
point in setting up the institute if we do not have the right people...
the government is working on it.” This despite the fact that the DST
website features a long list of workshops to train nearly 100 scientists
in glaciology.